KUALA LUMPUR: An academic institution in the country has been hit by the WannaCry ransomware worm, CyberSecurity Malaysia said today.
In a statement, the national cyber security specialist agency’s chief executive officer, Datuk Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab, said it has received an official report from the institution.
“We assume that there are more incidents unreported. We would like to urge all organisations, their system administrators, to be alert and continue with the necessary action to protect and secure their network infrastructure from being affected.
“System administrators are urged to patch their systems and keep their users aware of the new ransomware in order to prevent them from clicking on suspicious emails or files,” he said.
Amirudin also said that hoax messages riding on the WannaCry hype have gone viral on social media, and urged the public to get the right information from official sources and verify data before sharing it online.
“Malaysians are also advised to equip themselves with cyber security knowledge and use (the internet and applications) prudently and ethically.
“CyberSecurity Malaysia continues to proactively monitor the current situation and will take necessary action by providing technical assistance to affected organisations and individual users on remediation and prevention through our Cyber999 service,” Amirudin added.
The ransomware attack is not a new cyber threat, as the agency has previously received reports related to Cryptolocker, Cryptowall, CBT Locker, Teslacrypt Locky and others which targetted both individual users and organisations.
These malicious software invade computers and lock and encrypt its files, preventing user access until a ransom is paid to the creators.
The impact of ransomware infection include loss of valuable data, disruption of an organisation's operations, loss of reputation and high cost incurred in recovery processes.
“In general, Malaysians are still not aware of the existence of ransomware. Hence, they may not have sufficient information about its threat,” he added.